


The hoard

by all-of-the-ships-are-sailing (Phandom_Doodles)



Category: The Pacific (TV)
Genre: AU - The Last Of Us, Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Character Death, Injury, M/M, Mild Gore, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-24
Updated: 2018-08-24
Packaged: 2019-07-01 21:00:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15782022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phandom_Doodles/pseuds/all-of-the-ships-are-sailing
Summary: A short story inspired by the last of us for the Dystopia prompt of Sledgefu ship week.Eugene is outside of a quarantine zone and way out of his depth and Snafu is a badass but pissy survivor who usually prefers to get by on his own.





	The hoard

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoy. This work was only meant to be one chapter but apparently I live by the rule of ‘why use one word where twenty will do?’ So it’s being broken into two. The second part is actually where Sledgefu comes more into play so apologies for holding out on that one. I hope it’s worth the read anyway!

“Come on!” Sid hisses at him, a few feet ahead. Eugene looks over his shoulder at the sound of a military car pulling up nearby, much too nearby and he quickly closes up the cut fence they just crawled through to make it as unnoticeable as possible before following after Sid. The fence was already cut when they got to it. This was not Sid’s first time sneaking out.

“Where are we going?”

“Quiet down ‘til we’re past these assholes,” Sid snaps at him instead.

“If those _assholes_ spot us, we’re dead,”

“Best keep it down then,”

They crouch carefully across a torn up piece of road and climb down into a chunk of broken building that takes them half underground. The unstable walls creek around them but they tread carefully through to the other side. Sid climbs out into the dirt first and turns back, taking Eugene’s hand to drag him back out into the late night air. 

“This better be worth it.”

Sid had dragged him out of his bed after a mere four hours of sleep, tugged clothes over his head before he was even fully awake and lead him out into the cold, damp night so they could risk their damn lives sneaking past the zone fence. Even if they’ve made it passed the soldiers, they’re no better out here with all of the infected running rogue. One wrong move and both their asses are getting eaten alive. All of this and the only explanation Sid had given him was, “I wanna show ya somethin’.”

They make their way along a steady up hill, ducking behind cars or large lumps of debris at any bang or screech, any unanticipated noise. They’re taking way too many chances as it is.

“My mother ever finds out you brought me here, she’ll have your balls for earrings, you know that right?”

“Then I can only hope I make it back with both balls intact,” Sid quips. “Wouldn’t wanna disappoint.” He offers his hand to an out of breath Eugene, a few feet behind him. “Come on, it’s not much farther.”

Eugene takes his hand and lets himself be pulled along the rocky, uneven slope. Despite his promise of it not being much farther, it must be a good half hour of walking along here until the road runs out. Eugene freezes a good distance from the edge. 

The road appears to have caved in years ago and no more than ten feet ahead of him, the very ground they’re standing on disappears down into a valley of disaster and reclaimed nature, fallen buildings and wrecked, over-turned cars. Plants and trees grow through the windows and around the mess and somehow, in its own horrific kind of way, it’s actually quite beautiful, that through the destruction of human downfall, the earth is slowly reclaiming what should have never been taken from it in the first place and Eugene will never feel glad that this is what became of the planet that they all inhabit but at the same time, it sparks some feeling of warmth, some sense that not all is lost. Not really. 

“Come on,” Sid tells him, tugging his arm gently.

“I dunno,” Eugene mutters warily, glancing pointedly towards the edge. It doesn’t look very stable at all.

Seeming to read his mind, Sid replies, “pfft, it’s gonna take our weight, easy.” And then tugs him again, more insistently this time. Eugene follows but only slowly, treading as though he could somehow make himself lighter by sheer will.

Sid is right, though, the cracked concrete doesn’t seem to struggle to hold either of them and then Sid is pulling him down to sit with him, his legs dangling over the edge. Tempting fate, Eugene thinks but he follows suit.

“Relax,” Sid tells him, leaning his shoulder against him and laughing. He squints at the cracked glass of his watch. “Uhhhhh, should be able to see in a little less than a half hour.”

“See what?” Eugene frowns. Sid takes his hand again and plays with his fingers mindlessly.

“What did you tell me on your last birthday?” Sid ask and god, that was a whole year ago, what’s he hoping for?

“Pass me that bottle of whiskey you found?” Eugene shrugs in a sarcastic guess. Sid sighs and nudges him.

“Seriously. What did you tell me was the one thing you’d love to do on your birthday?”

It takes Eugene a minute to get any idea of what the hell Sid is talking about but when he finally clicks, a small smile spreads across his face. “The sunrise?”

“To watch the sun rise from somewhere that ain’t a quarantine building window,” Sid confirms for him and looks out to where the skyline meets the silhouette of earths disaster. 

“How’d ya know to come here?”

“After we moved to this zone, I decided that this would be the year I made that happen for ya,” Sid tells him. “If I could.”

Eugene shakes his head in disbelief. “You.” He can barely even say the words. “Snuck out _repeatedly,_ risking everything to try and find a place where we could do this?”

Sid shrugs. “Happy Birthday, Gene.” 

“You’re crazy,” Eugene breaths, shoving Sid in the shoulder but grinning widely despite himself. Having met Sid at the previous zone they both lived at, plus being the only two guys of this age, they connected very quickly and have been near inseparable since, even down to sleeping in the same room. No one knows that they also share a bed sometimes and it shouldn’t matter really, it’s not like they’ve ever done anything untoward in there, even if there had been nights when Eugene couldn’t have been sure that that would remain true for much longer but it’s something they keep between them anyway.

The very edge of the skyline melts into the slightest orange tint for a few brief minutes, warning them to watch before the sun finally peeps into view, overlaying the world around them in a gorgeous layer of pink, decorative clouds shuffling dreamily past them. Eugene sucks in a breath at the sight but he can feel that Sid’s eyes are not on the sky, favouring to take in his face instead.

“Would ya get a look at that,” Eugene breathes. Sid hums to himself and leans his head on Eugene’s shoulder.

...

Eugene could swear he’d almost been asleep when low clicking sounds bring him back to the world around them and the immediate tensing of the person next to him makes him want to start, too. Sid clasps a firm hand on his shoulder before he can and hisses in his ear. “Hold still.”

Eugene does as he’s told but he can’t resist the urge to turn his head slightly as the clicking sounds increase in volume, indicating their approach. He starts to tremble against his will.

“If they don’t spot us, they’ll just pass by,” Sid barely breathes into his ear. The thumb on Eugene’s shoulder rubs slightly as Sid must notice his shivering. “S’okay, Gene. They can’t see.”

Of course, they learn about the different types of infected in military training and while he might not have completed that yet, he knows enough about infected to differentiate. Clickers were once people but they’ve been infected for a long time, causing these mushroom like growths to form on and around their heads, effectively blinding them. Even still, they have excellent hearing and use a series of clicking sounds to reverberate off nearby objects to define what’s around them. Once a clicker knows where they are, they’re all but done for. So long as they’re silent, they may just get out of this alive.

The small pack of clickers dont edge too close, they must be able to sense that the ground disappears in this direction. The shift in movement let’s Eugene relax enough to believe that they have actually managed to avoid them but of course, nothing could ever just go that easily. Neither of them move a muscle but what they hadn’t noticed is the newly turned rogue coughing, snorting and twitching it’s way along the rear of the clicker group. Newly infected people are not blind and it doesn’t matter how perfectly still Eugene and Sid hold their positions, it only takes one glance from the rabid man to send him screeching and hissing at them and in the next moment, they’re tearing along the road with upwards of around seven infected hoarding after them.

“Gene, come on!” Sid yells back but Eugene is on his tail.

“Where do we go?” Eugene panics. They can’t go straight back to the zone, even just one infected getting through that cut fence could be catastrophic. 

“This way, gene!” Sid veers off down a narrow alleyway. “We can try an’ lose ‘em round the back.”

Sid always made it his first task when moving to a new zone to learn the map of the area, should he ever need to know his options, which is fortunate because Eugene has no idea where they are or where to go. What is unfortunate though, is that the map can never warn Sid of any changes to the usability of any of these pathways in the event of a partially collapsed building, as is what they find waiting for them around the corner.

“Fuck!”

The screeching behind them is gaining on them fast despite the small amount of distance they’d managed to put between them and the infected. Eugene is panting, his windpipe feels straw thin and he can taste blood.

“What do we do?” He gasps helplessly as Sid frantically searches over the crushed rubble for any option.

“It looks like...we might be able to crawl through here.” He starts pulling at lumps of concrete and metal structuring and Eugene starts to see it too, a gap that they can both easily fit through, which means so can the infected but they have no other choice here. The debris groans and creeks, clearly not stable, maybe only recently fallen and Eugene’s heart sits in his throat as Sid shoves him into a crouching position and sends him under the gap, following close behind.

It’s around halfway through it that Eugene miscalculates his movements and pushes up just a touch too tall, his hunched back pushing at a piece of concrete above them and causing a gut clenching shift and the side falls, trapping Eugene’s leg and making him fall face first against the ground. He bites his tongue from the force of his chin hitting the ground and hums in a kind of shocked pain as blood fills his mouth and spills out over his bottom lip, running down towards his chin. Sid scrambles ahead of him and turns sharply to get ahold of his arms and drag him out. Eugene hadn’t noticed the small bolt of snagged metal pipe, that had jutted out from the concrete that is pinning his leg but the moment Sid tugs him, he becomes more than well aware of it when it tears its way along his calf. Eugene cries out in agony but he’s already free by the time Sid can notice to pause.

Another screech and a mangled hand claws at the ground behind them as infected start making their way through the gap finds Eugene being hauled to his feet, despite the pain.

“Can you run?” Sid asks. Eugene puts his foot down testily.

“No,” he says and it feels like a damning moment if ever there was one. “But I’ll figure it out.”

“You’re gonna have to,” Sid says and starts to drag him. 

Back to running. Eugene hobbles as best he can to keep up. It fucking hurts. Blood streams down his ankle, soaking into his sock. It’s strange to him that he notices that but it happens whenever he’s scared or particularly stressed, his mind will hyper focus on some pretty insignificant detail in that moment, in this case the unbearable feeling of blood turning sticky in his damn sock.

The closed alleys open out into a wider collection of buildings that are a little more formed.

“Should we hide?” Eugene winces, his leg is struggling not to give out. He can’t keep up at this pace and they aren’t putting nearly enough distance between themselves and the infected, once again gaining on them way too fast. Somewhere along the way, more runners joined in on the chase and seem to be enough of a sound guide for the clickers to stay on their trail.

“Shit,” Sid says, looking down at the mess of Eugene’s calf. “Alright, in here.” They duck into the nearest building and Sid all but pushes him up the stairs. It looks like it might have once been a bar, based on pictures that Eugene had seen of these things before. There’s a long bar with a few taps still intact. There’s no alcohol bottles along the back shelves anymore and all the mirrors have been smashed. This place had been raided to empty a long time ago. 

Sid pushes Eugene into a small closet, perhaps an old cleaning cupboard. The door is broken off one hinge but he squeezes himself in next to him and holds the door as closed as he can. They can hear that infected definitely followed them into the lower part of the building and Eugene only hopes they made it up the stairs before any of them could spot them.

Staggered footsteps and clicking grows ever closer again. The clickers are slightly less of a worry in this specific moment because they will be unable to check in places such as closets but should any runners follow them up, they may very well spot them should there be any movement. Sid goes completely tense anyway and it makes Eugene hold his breath with him. The clicking lingers just outside the broken door Sid is supporting for a few everlasting seconds before it grows fainter again.

Neither of them move even after the movements downstairs have been silent for a good few minutes. Eugene winces again, the pain in his leg is growing into a piercing sting. Oh this is so not good.

“Can you hold this door?” Sid helps Eugene slide into position to better support the door. “I’m gonna check if they’ve gone. No matter what you hear, you do not leave this closet until I come get you, clear?”

Eugene opens his mouth to protest.

“Swear to me, Gene.”

Eugene curses inwardly and glares at him but ultimately nods in agreement. “Be careful.”

Sid saves him one last look, grits his teeth and shifts from behind the door, helping Eugene place it again. Listening intently, Eugene can just about make out the light, cautious footsteps of Sid making his way down the beat up old stairs and then everything falls silent for what feels like an age until he hears footsteps return to the stairs.

Only a few steps up, the silence breaks with the sound of a sharp yell and then an exclamation of “oh fuck!” from a voice that is gut wrenchingly familiar. Sid.

Eugene moves to shift the door aside and try and get to him but remembers his promise. He swore to stay where he was. The screaming voice turns into two, then three and then Eugene can’t differentiate them enough to guess a number, all that he knows is that one of them is coming from Sid and by god, it sounds like agony.

His mind whites out and he finds that he couldn’t move if he wanted to. He falls back a little, the door tilts and slips slightly but doesn’t fall, though when they come up stairs, they will likely catch sight of him through the gap and then he’s done for. His limbs tremble and he can’t catch his breath, can’t think straight. This is it now, they’re coming. He’s gonna die. They’re gonna get him like they just got Sid. Feet thumping up the stairs and this is it. His death is moments away. He’s gonna die. He’s gonna die. He’s gonna...

The door is shoved aside and wide piercing eyes are on him, taking in his dithering frame. The lower half of its face is hidden behind a thick piece of material and the hood of its jacket is pulled up, covering its head so all Eugene can make out are its eyes. Muffled sound comes from behind it but Eugene can’t take in anything except the dazed observation of just how shocking those damn eyes are. Eugene is pretty certain he’s in shock. This thing is gonna bite him any second, once it figures out how to get the cover off its face, he’s done for. He wonders distantly, how this creature managed to survive this far with its mouth shrouded as it is. 

Those eyes turn angry and the creature growls again and leans forward. Eugene almost wants to laugh and tell it that it’s not gonna get very far with that thing on its face but then its hands are on him and he’s being shaken roughly. The next time it makes a noise, Eugene picks up some of it.

“...fuckin’ deathwish? Let’s go!”

Then he’s being yanked forwards and his mind still can’t take in anything that’s happening, not fully but he’s moving down the stairs. The thing dragging him isn’t a thing at all, he’s a human, he can take in that at least. There’s a pile of movement in the corner of his vision. It’s gory and brutal and then the guy is saying something else and Eugene thinks he catches something about not looking at it but it’s all just a blur to him anyway. 

A glint of light finds his eyes finally focusing on a long blade that the guy pulls out of somewhere Eugene has no idea and he brings his arm around in a forceful arc that buries the blade into the torso of a fast approaching runner, stopping it in its tracks and falling to its knees. The guy tugs the blade out and swings again, taking the runners head clean off and then he’s hauling Eugene out of the building and trawling around the corner while the pile of infected are still distracted by the bloody mess on the floor in the old bar.

Once round the corner with no sign of infected following them just yet, Eugene is being pushed into the wall and the blade of that knife is being pushes eerily close to his throat. Them eyes are boring into his again, sharp and mad and weirdly hypnotic.

“You wanna live, you follow me and do as I say,” The man says. He doesn’t remove the knife until Eugene gives him a good clear nod and he aims the tip of the blade to his leg instead. “Can’ya walk on that?”

Eugene leans his weight on the leg, testing it again like before. Pain sears along his calf whether he puts pressure on it or not and the weight doesn’t seem to make it worse anymore. “It’s fine.”

“Let’s move,” The guy says and takes lead.

“Wait, what’s your name?”

The man stops and turns back. “why?”

Eugene shrugs. “I dunno, I just...”

The guy rolls his eyes and carries on moving. Eugene follows but it’s not long before he’s being halted again and the hiss of a curse comes from behind that dusty balaclava. 

“Goddamn clickers,” the man grunts, grabbing Eugene’s shoulder and yanking him down to the same crouch he’s already in. He gestures sharply for Eugene to stay put and Eugene can only watch him in wide eyed amazement as he pulls out a smaller knife from his boot and then sneaks forward, ever so quietly to where the clicker is spasming and twitching its way across the road. He wants to call for him, tell him he’s crazy and gonna get himself killed. Eugene may have never handled these things by himself before but he’s sure as hell just seen what they can do. Messing with them is suicide. 

He doesn’t make a sound, though his breath does catch when the man suddenly jumps up behind the clicker, grabbing it by a particularly large mushroom like growth protruding from its head and digging the shiv deep into where its throat should be. The knife goes in with a skin prickling crunch and the clicker screeches and thrashes back but the man holds tight, punching the knife in again in a slightly different part of its neck and holding it strong until it goes down. The man is of a scrawny build but he moves fast.

“Come on, zone boy,” The man sniffs, eyes still scouting the parameter for any sign that they’re not the only two living things nearby. Eugene doesn’t even have it in him to respond to the insult, just gets his feet shifting after him. He doesn’t look like he’s come from any Eugene knows of and bandits are very rarely known to travel alone. Just who the fuck is this guy?


End file.
